Of Shoes

I thought it was so interesting to learn about family rules this week. They are those unspoken rules that individual families make up, and when someone breaks those rules the world comes crashing down (Well, maybe not, but there might be a negative result). They can be very good things and keep balance in a family.

When I thought about my family in Colorado, I came up with millions of rules. One of them was that if you came in the house you took off your shoes. It was just how it was done. I suppose I could come up with reasons why like the floors getting dirty (we had white carpets) or more work for my mom or loud echoes everywhere since we had wooden floors. But really I just thought “That’s how it is”.

 When I got married I discovered that my spouse did not take off his shoes when he came in the apartment. I think my brain imploded the first time this happened. I couldn’t understand it. Why wouldn’t you take off your shoes? Oh no, I had married messy man!

We eventually came up with our own family rule that we would take off our shoes when we came inside because it would keep the apartment clean and preserve a good aura. I eventually found out why he never took off his shoes when we went to visit his family over the summer. Nobody took their shoes off when they went indoors. Shoes. On. All the time.

That was when I realized we grew up in different situations with different families with different family rules. I knew this before. I knew we were different people, but it took seeing his sisters walk around the living room in sneakers for me to realize that we had completely different backgrounds. I also realized that other family rules are completely valid. It made sense for them to not take off their shoes in their house, but you would be beaten in my house if you left them on (Not really. You would just be reminded to take them off). And that was okay.

Although my little family does not have many rules yet, I am excited to start making them. I’m excited to create our own little thing where we can function and complement each other in our rules and roles. After all, what is marriage without a bit of creativity?